Battle of Zig-Zag Pass BrinsonArthur CPT

7/28/2019 Battle of Zig-Zag Pass BrinsonArthur CPT

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GENERAL INSTRUCTION DEPARTMENTTHE ARMORED, SCHOOLFort Knox, 'KentuckyMilitary Monograph

The Advanced Officer Class #1 5!May 1948TITLE: The Battle of Zigzag pass,SCOPE: This monograph deals with the battleof Zigzag Pass. It covers the actionsof the 38th Infantry Division from thetime they established a beachhead onthe island of Luzon until the battleof Zigzag Pass had been completed and-the Japanese, escape- route into BataanPeninsula had-been cut off. Thisarticle principally concerns the 149thInfantry Regiment* of which the writerwas a member during-the entire battle.

Prepared bt 1 lAWJ!HUR B8RINSON4Captain m-Cavalr

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of the Japanese was to race through Zigzag Pass to the eastcoast of Bataan at Manila Bay.* This action by the Japs wouldseal off Bataan Peninsula and prevent the. Americans Who wereretreating. before the Japanese from using. the peninsula as anescape haven. Success of the-American retreat depended on howlong the pass could -be held. Against, numerically superior andbetter equipped Japanese' the American force held Zigzag forsix weeks before joining the main body on.Bataan Peninsula.In 1945 Positions of opposing- forces were exactly reversed.The Japs were fleeing before the Sixth Army's drive scuthwardout of 'its invasion point at Lingayen Gulf. It was essentialto prevent the Japanese from attempting to escape into BataanPeninsula.

On 14 January 194.5. General Headquarters, SouthwestPacific Area, issued instructions. to.. the Commanding General,Eighth.United -States Army, outlining-the. general plan forMike Seven operation. This-.plan called for the seizure ofthe San Antonio-oCastillejos. San Felipe area in southernSarbales Provinces Southwest Luzon,& by overwater operation.

The specific missions assigned. Eighth Army were asfollows:1

(1) In conjunction with Allied.Naval Force, toseizeAOongapoAd -Vsuchjcnaesa

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(2) To sei ze. he -line Hermosa-Dina-lupihan inorder to deny hostile movement between thePampanga Plains and. Bataan P,6ninsulao

(3) Be prepared, to pass control of Eighth Armyunits and responsibility for duties and.missions in the San Antonio-Sutbic-fDinalupihan area to' Commanding General,Sixth_ United, States Army, at a time tobe designated by General HeadquartersSoathwest Pacif ic Area.

Eighth.Army Field.Order Number 15, dated 16 January1945, charged XI Corps. with conduct of the operation. Theassault force was to consist of the 38th Infantry Divisionreinforced by the 34th Regimental Combat Team. The 41stInfantry Division, General Headquiarters Reserve, was to beprepared to land in the area on, orders of the CommandingGeneral, Eighth Army, and on landing pass to control ofXI Corps.

*Be.Day for the operation was 29 January 1945; H-whourwas 0830. At*H-hour. minus two three guerrillas reportedto the flagship- that-there were no Japanese in the beach-b

*Report of the Commanding General, Eigzhth Army, on the

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head area. Assault troops hit' the beach at the scheduledhour with-three regiments abreastp 152nd on right, 149thcenters- and 151st on left.,

At this time I wasexctv officer~of Company C-0149th -Infantry and this narrative will-concern principallythat regime-nt. Orders from. Regiment directed, the Battalionsto capture San Marcelino -that day even if 4it- meant fightingat night. By 1600 we had seized San Marcelino air stt.ip. .The152nd Infantry- Regiment also secured -its sector of XI Corpsbeachhead and 2nd Battalion, 151st Infantry* secured theCorps flank. The f ollowing day the 149th and 152nd movedpast Castellejos to Subic., One Battalion from 151st Infantrymade a shore to shore operation, landing on Grande' Islandin SubicBay without a casualty. In the meantime 34 RCTadvanced rapidly on. San Marcelino, Castellejos and Subic toOlongapo. On 31 January 152nd relieved 34 RCT astride High-wway Seven, north of Olongapo in the entrance to Zigzag Pass.

The plan of attacking Zigzag was simple. One regimentwas to smash there frontally, another to follow an almostunknown Negrito trail. north. of the, highway, eventually toemerge at the eastern entrance near the. town of Dinalupihan.It was then to attack westward through, the pass, pressingthe Jaaeeiaasalbt tgtpnhr

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to begin its end run around Zigzag. The second and thirdbattalions with Company C of the 113th. Medical Battalionoand platoon of Company A of the 113th Engineers, were to makethe march; the first battalion was to remain in Divisionreserve. With Filipino guerril'las and Negritos as guidesthe regiment moved out. They reported their position atnightfall to be in a ravine, 2000 yards north of HighwaySeven. Early next morning a cub-plane spotted their loca-ftion and from aerial photographs deduced that they wereactually 5,000 yards farther north than their previous re-port had indicated.. As a result the Division Commander,on the assumption that they had taken the wrong trail,ordered the 149th Infantry to return to Olongapo. Theyreached Olongapo that night, 3 February 1945.

On 3 February the XI Corps Commander directed the 149thInfantry to again proceed along the same trail and close onDinalupihan as soon as possible. -Although no operation wasencountered until the march ha-d been completed, the march waspure hell- five days of it.

The Louisville* (Kentuck--y) Courier -Journal described the149th cross-country march in the following dispatch:"Reminiscent of the days of the old Second Kentucky Infantry,

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ment.A tortuous road- believed never before to have beentrod by white man was followed by the 149th to seal off re-wtreat of the. Japanese-into .Bataan. at Zigzag Pass# when the38th Division first won the. title. "Avengers of Bataan"..

Only i tems of equipment essential, to the successf ulcomrpletion-of the-mission could be taken alonlg. Packingeverything, on their backs, including. a complete portablesurgical hospital,# the. regiment made- the- march in five days.It. seemed. up- hill1 most. of -the way. In many instances ropeshad to be used. to scale the clif s., Strange as it seems,not one, man fell out,,. Of course, there was only one way togo and that was straight ahead.

The 149th Infantry Regiment completed its march on 5February, linking. up with XlVtorps. driving southward fromLingayen to. Dinalupihan. In our..first bivouac after com-opleting .our., march two men lost their- lives due to poorplanning*. The Battalion Commander made arrangements withsome Filipino guerrillas to pass through our lines allnight on . their..patrol. Our companies were instructed notto fire unless they were certain what they were firing into.During the. nights. the troop on. the main road, after havingthese Filipinos pass by them all night* beoame*,- careless

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until they -started tossing grenades.- All the Japanese werekilled but we lost two good men in the fight. I believeanything that moves after dark. should be fired on.

At the other, end of.. the pass the 34th ROT and. 152ndInfantry were having their..troubles. For a while it seemedthat a lot of. the- division's own- artillery'was 'falling onfriendly lines-and the men. up front would call back to "Outit out." It 'was finally dis-covered that as soon as we start-ed firing the Japanese would.-open -up with 90MM mortars on ourlines, and that account-ed for the front line doughboy thinkswIng they were being. fired on by their own artillery. Afterthat, artillery was poured on the. Japanese all night. That.bottled up the Japanese mortars. Things hadn't been goingtoo well for the 152nd Infantry. This battle was their firstmajor action and they were learning important lessons thehard way. The Japanese had taken a heavy toll with theirnight attacks and mortar and artillery barrages. At theclose of the .third day in Zigzag the regiment was forced todig in-without having scored any appreciable gains. At thistime XI Corps directed- the. 34th. Infantry to relieve the 152nd.While Passing through. the. latter regiment*. it ran into heavyresistance and units jammed up. In the confusion many

casAte eeifite n twsipssbetAiegg

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but heavy tire forced. them. to withdraw. The next day theregiment began an. attack, .152nd, on the, north. and. the 34thon the south of the r-oad. While attempting to maneuveraround-its-opposition.s the 34th moved north of the road andagain confusion reigned as king. On February 5th the 34thInfantry which had scored advances up to. one thousand yardsbut tired -and beaten had been driven. back to their originalpositions. finally asked to be relieved. On 8 February the151st 'Infantry -was committed, taking over the 34th's sector.

After the 149th Infantry compoleted their rmarch aroundZigzag the..regiment was halted one day while the men had abath, clean socks and some, fortunate ones received new shoes.All of our supplies were delivered by air. 0o-47 deliveredammuni1tion.. rations and even. machine guns and mortars. Theammunition and rations were delivered to the ground in afree drop. This is a very poor way to deliver supplies ascartons of rations would.. break. and scatter all over thedrop zone. The drop was hard-on mortar. ammunition as the.shock-from hitting the ground. bent the. fins on the shellsand caused, numerous erratic rounds. After a day of restth-e third battalion was directed to move. down to the eastcoast of JBataan to capture. Hermosa, the Corps objective.

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countered and the first aay and, that. night we went into arather crowded perimeter. During the night a position onthe outside ring of the position killed two Japanese andwounded the third.* The wounded Japanese was so seriouslywounded he couldn't move, but instead of, finishing him offhe was allowied to continue his screams for help in hopes thathe would attract additional Japanese.

The next day the 2nd battalion passed through the 1stand continued the attack. Bringing tanks into action-forthe first time,. he.."1Nip" temporarily halted the advance ofthe 2nd battalion. Equipped with-only.-light infantry weaponsthe men found it difficult to deliver effective anti4-tankf re. Thick underbru sh. eton ated -bazooka ammunit on andwade that weapon harmless against tanks. However, the bazookasdid knock out the ma-chine,. guns on two tanks. 'Artillery firewas called f or and the. tanks withdrewy. It should be notedthat the artillery supporting- the- 149th was located nearOlongapo, at the western entrance to the pass, and facingour infantry advancing from the east., Extremely accuratefire prevented friendly casualities. Much credit for theaccuracy of our artillery should go to liaison pilots andair observers of the division artillery.

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ran up to the edge of the perime te r and fired several roundsof cannister into the -battalion. Failure to provide adequateanti--tank protection resulted- in twenty-three men being killedand several. more wounded by the Japanese tanks. The next daythe battalion again attacked. through -the. heavy undergrowthagainst heavy automatic 'fire. and was again stopped by the tanks.Artillery fire was placed on- them and one was knocked out. Alucky round from an ,81MM mortar knocked out the other., Onthis same day our coupe-ny was sent around. the left flank ofthe2nd battalion on a patrol mission. Our mission was to makecontact with the 152nd. An incident, that happened on thispatrol is worth repeating because of the lesson learned., Theleading squad had a small fire..Light with five Japanese andkilled all of them. The squad-leader--had the Japanese searchedand brought back some documents- to. the company commander. Hetold -the- company commander all1 the. Japanese- had been thoroughlysearched. Two days later we passed these dead Japanese againand the Company Commander thought he would search themn againfor good measure.- As it turned, out he found a map of thearea sewed. in the lining.of a coat. The map showed the entiredefense plan of the. eastern end- of the pass. This proved avaluable lesson to us.,as it brought out to the men in the

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on 11 February an attack was launched from both east andwest. The forces moving eastward through the pass wvere the151st and 152nd Infantry. Advan-cing from~the east the 149thwas encountering moderate. to heavy resistance. Attackingwith BARS, grenades and rifles the infantry knocked ou tpositions that had withstoo-d-he-avy artillery and mortarsfor days~e The advance was steady but sl-ow and the end wasnow in. sight. On 1.2 February patrols from the 149th InfantryRegiment- and the 152nd Regiment contacted each other and themain bodies of troops were separated-by only a half mile.On 14. February the, two regiments -linked up in strength onthe south side. of the road., At noon the road was once againopen to traffic. By dark the_ same day the 149th attackingstrong points as shown, on the, captured- map had reduced thelast remaining organized resistance in the pass. While the149th drove thro-ugh. Dinalupihan..and down. Bataan Peninsulato link up with, its third.battalion. the- 152nd began the taskof mopping up pockets of. the-Japanese force that remainedhidden in-the jungles of Zigzag.,

During the battle 1846.. Japanese were killed and eighteencaptured. The bulk of the., Japanese 39th Infantry Regimentwith attached, combat and servic.e- troops was annihilated.

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shortened.Listed below are some of the lessons learned in the

operation. First. I will discuss enemy tactics. When theJap has plenty of time to prepare a defensive position hewill usually be very well dug in. A heavy artillery barragewill not force him to evacuate a position. Usually it tookNapalm. high explosive bombs. and the good American soldierwith his grenades and his rifle to shake the Japs loose.

A hasty reconnaissance should be mtde of all suspecteddefense positions* Along the route of advance the Japanesewould allow leading, elements. of a column to pass by them with-wout exposing themselves, then they would ambush the main bodyof troops. It is always good Judgement to give' your enemycredit for being as smart as you are. We found that theJapanese. picked. their defensive positions in a manner muchlike ours. Therefore all such positions. should be consideredas occupied. Resonnaissance by fire normally forced theenemy to disclose his position.

The role of the infantry has always been to locate theenemy, then kill or capture him. It was an easy Job to con-wvince the men in the companies that it was either kill or be'killed. Sometimes this was drilled so thoroughly in oursOdes ed htw a oodrte ocpuea


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the American soldier'Is desire. to kill 1 aps was a healthydesire, and we always strove to keep our, men in the frameof f mind that, "The best Jap is a ~dead_ one". Regardless ofhow terrain conditions are.P a11 plans should provide for thecomplete. destruction- of' the .enemy. Block all escape routesto prevent the enemy from scattering. into- the hills or mov-wing to more favorable defensive positions.

Whenever possible and especially over difficult terrain,the soldier should travel-with as light a load as the situa-otion will-permit. The use of civilian carri ers." to transportfood. ammunition, heavy equipment and supplies wheneverpossible. to relieve the soldier of those duties, is a wiseidea. Every soldier should be provided with an extra canteenas water was very hard to get. Removal of casualities wasvery difficult and civilian labor was used to great advantagein this job. Supply discipline .must be enforced a4nd moreemphasis placed on this during training long before the troopsever teach the combat zone.

In night bivouacs orders for the night must be thorough-wly and clearly understood by all members of a command. Everyman must dig. in..and hold his fire during the hours of dark-wness.v Replacements must be thoroughly oriented as to the pro-p

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weapons to. handle those people. Our company lost a darngood platoon sergeant 9 and the loss or a pl-atoon leader forseveral weeks 'Just because a squad leader failed to tell hismen about 'our rule prohibiting one of our- own men from firinginto our perimeter. Men should. dig prone shelters in pairsto form a 'I"* This type hole establishes confidinoe inthe men as it provides close -contact and allowis one man tosleep while the other remnains--ow guard. Men. who have nightemares and fits in their sleep. should. be placed inside theperimeter. Here they shoul-d sleep with. a. very light sleeperso he can grab them if they decide, to. jump up and run.

Zigzag- Pass was the initial battle ground for thegreater part of. the '38th Infantry Division.- The 1st Battalions149th- Infantry Regiment was the-only battle tested-unit inthe division. Zigzag proved to. be one of the toughestsifn t the toughestp battle in the war for our division, itwas-here the individual. soldier -learned all the little lessonsthat were to prove so valuable to him later' on.


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BIBLIOGRAPHLY

1Report of the Commanding General. Eighth Army.on the Nasugbu and- Bataan Operation.2. History of 149th Infantry Regiment.3. 'Conversation with Lieutenant Colonel MIlmer

Meredith.4.- Conversation with Major Chester L. Pearson.,5. Letter from Colonel, Winifred G.* Skelton.

Battle of Zig-Zag Pass BrinsonArthur CPT

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